Suzie’s House 470 : Last Laugh

“Sadistic bstrd,” Walter muttered to himself.

“What?” Drew leaned forward a little, though the lower part of his shoulders still touched the back wall of the sound room. He gave Walter a concerned look.

“What? Oh, no. I was just thinking.” Walter half way smiled in the hopes that Drew would let it slide. There was no way he wanted to explain what was going on in his head right then.

“Please be quiet,” Pete said with a thick stripe of irritation in his voice.

The differences between the blind sound engineer who so generously donated his time and expertise to a bunch of starry eyed kids, and the soldier Walter couldn’t stop thinking about couldn’t have been more stark.

His hips and knees ached from standing there for so long. He leaned forward, hoping to change the stress. The position made him think about clinging to the gaping door of a helicopter while looking down at Martin. He winced.

“You alright?” Drew spoke quietly as he reached out to steady Walter.

“Nothing I haven’t been living with for years. I guess I’m getting old.” He would have liked to sit down, but there was only one stool, and Pete was on it.

“If the two of you are going to be distracting, could you please leave?”

Walter thought the kids might stand up for him, but they were all entirely focused on the girl with a bag on her head, rolled up like a hat, singing for all she was worth. Of all the parts, Walter didn’t want to miss that. He thought she was the best singer he’d heard since Janice Joplin.

He straightened, and made a zipped mouth gesture. Drew made a tentative motion toward the door. Just that fast, the girl was done singing.

“Yeah, I guess I better go.”

“What? No, stay!” The girl guitarist looked over her shoulder at him.

“These old bones have had enough. I need to go.” Saying it made him feel all his old army wounds, too.

“Are you sure?” She turned toward him.

“Yeah.” He made his way to the exit.

To his surprise, Drew came along. As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, he started talking.

“I can find a chair for you. I know how much you were looking forward to this.”

“No.” Walter gave it serious consideration, but in the end, he had to let it go. “It’s not just my joints. There’s something about this band that makes me think about things I’d rather forget.”

“Oh.”

The two of them stepped back as the singer entered the hall from the studio. She whisked passed them to dart into the sound room.

“How’d I do?” Her bright young voice was answered by the cheerful response of her band. The door closed, cutting off all sound.

It made Walter smile. He lead the way out to the street.

“You know, I’m not much of a musician, but if I’d grown up with kids like them, I think I might have been in a band too.”

“Yeah? What kind of kids did you grow up with?”

“The kind that won’t do you any favors.”

They walked on in silence while Walter’s eyes scoured the sidewalk for something to fill the awkwardness.

“I had a best friend. Martin.”

“Yeah? What happened to him?”

“He died. In the war.” Step, step, step. Walter tried to keep moving. But he couldn’t stay ahead of it for long. “Truth is, I killed him. But he got the last laugh. He’s haunted me ever since.”

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